Dr. Wyatt Walker interview

This is an interview with Andrew Manis of Xavier University and
an interview with Dr. Wyatt Wa l ker. [This intervi ew was
conducted on April 20, 1989 , at Canaan Baptist Church, New York
City.)
ANDREW MANIS : Could you rehash what we have a l ready gone over
about your meeting with Fred Shuttlesworth.
DR. WALKER: I f irst met Fred Shuttlesworth and since you
mentioned it, I am sure it is after he came to national
prominence with the bombing of his home but it was around 1 956 or
1957 and I was the leader of the Movement in Petersburg,
Virginia . I invited him to come and be the mass meeti ng speaker
for our Movement which was called the Petersburg Improvement
Association. We had patterned it directl y after the MIA, the
Montgomery Improvement Association.
ANDREW MANIS: What were your impressions of him -- the obvious
thing is about his courage -- but in terms of his preaching
style , his theologi cal perspectives, exper tise , or l ack of it?
DR. WALKER: Well, now that you mention it live always known that
Fred does not have theo l ogical training and a person who does not
have the discipline of theol ogical training , it is immediately
transmitted when you hear them speak . The odd thing is, as far
as I know, I have never heard Fred Shuttlesworth preach. live
only heard him speak , you know , and it has always been i n the
mass meeting situation. Fred used to travel a good deal with Dr .
King , and Abernathy and us when we were on fundrais ing tours when
we were on the West Coast and the Midwest or wherever and we kind
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of had a little pattern. I usually, because in that group I was
of the briefest tenure, I would do about six minutes to get the
crowd up and then Fred would come on and speak for maybe eight or
ten or twelve, maybe fourteen. Then Abernathy would come and
give kind of a full presentation, maybe fifteen or eighteen
minutes and then go right to the offering. Then after the
offering was lifted and then Dr. King would come with the major
address. We called this the SCLC hour. The local group, I had
designed how to promote a Martin Luther King rally. We gave them
some outline of how to do it and we termed it the SCLC hour.
Sometimes Fred would not be with us so Abernathy and I did it, or
if we had a student with us, you know. That's the way we handled
it. So I've only heard Fred in those kinds of situations. I
don't know if I've ever heard Fred preach. I have no
recollection. Now I know his speaking style is ah it's
charitable to say its amorphous. It has no particular shape,
but, you know, that's Fred.
ANDREW MANIS: How do you separate, given the fact that Black
ministers have tended to put together their preaching of the
Gospel with Civil Rights, how do you separate a sermon from a
speech?
DR. WALKER: Well, that's difficult. A sermon is focused in my
experience directly at trying to win souls for Christ, whereas a
mass meeting speech, for instance, I do maybe 150 talks a year of
some sort in a variety of settings -- banquets, anniversaries, or
groups, Martin Luther King celebrations, etc. But the vehicle of
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whatever I have to say is always in the preaching mode. It is
hortatory. It is usually very strongly biblically based and Fred
would have that same stance.
ANDREW MANIS: Would he have a biblical text that he might weave
in and out of?
DR. WALKER: Well, half of the times, yes, and half of the times
no. It depends again upon the situation. For instance, I was at
Colgate - Rochester [Divinity School] not long ago and the text
that I had for the annual Martin Luther King address was one I
made up. But the tradition of preachers in the Black free
church, we use a text of some sort, no matter what the
assignment, whether its Rotary, or a high school commencement or
another pastor's anniversary banquet. We don't have any hangup
about using the Bible as a reference. And I would say that, as I
think about Fred's speeches, you would often have some preaching
in it, you know, with direct references to the Bible, talking
about the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace or Job, you
know, which is characteristic of our kind of speaking. But Fred
seldom had, I mean, it is difficult to think, "What is Fred's
structure? What is his introduction? What is his first point?
His second point?"
ANDREW MANIS: Well, I have heard a few sermons in his church and
they are very much the same way.
DR. WALKER: Without form and structure?
ANDREW MANIS: Well, it's hard to pick it out, yes. But perhaps
form and structure is . .
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DR. WALKER: Yeah, and I need to say that I am not wedded to
Western yardsticks, you know. Fred has been an effective
leadership person, both in Birmingham and I presume in
Cincinnati. I mean he left a church there and then built a
church . Now when you get a church up off the ground from square
one, that takes a lot of doing. So he has some gifts. Whether he
does that with sermons with three points or sermons with no
points or with forty alleged points there is still some value to
what he does .
ANDREW MANIS: Let me get to, and any time you want to season
your comments with anecdotes, so much the better but what was his
role? You mentioned in situations like fundraising trips, he was
secretary or an officer of SCLC and I presume was regular in
meetings and board meetings • .
DR. WALKER: Oh, yes, Fred never missed . If Fred was ill Fred
would not come, but I have no recollection of SCLC having any
kind of meeting in which Fred was not present.
ANDREW MANIS: Was he active? Did he make vocal
DR. WALKER: Oh, Lord, yes . Fred was very vocal and he had one
penchant that he stayed on and that was "We need to have some
action ." That's all he talked about. I remember when , see we
were in Birmingham in May of 1962, that's my -- I think I 'm
right -- May of 1962 or earlier than that. We had a Board
meeting and we were talking about an Easter boycott and the folks
downtown, you know, got in with some comfortable Negroes and it
didn ' t come off. We didn't p l an it because they said they were
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going to take down the s i gns and when this news got around , Fred
said, "I'm gonna te l l you what t hey're gonna do. They ' re going
to take them down and they they ' re gonna put them right back up. "
And that's exactly what happened . So then we began to tool up
for Christmas of 1962 . We went through the same thi ng and Fred
told us then , "They won ' t keep their word. "
ANDREW MANIS: In September of 1962 SCLC convention was i n
Birmi ngham.
DR. WALKER: Yes , that ' s right . That ' s when we were p l anning .
Because that ' s when the fe l low slugged Dr . King over in the,
what ' s the old man's name, Gaston buildi ng . He was mentioning
about Sammy Davis doi ng a benefit and we were getting ready for
the next Eas t er. That ' s what it was . Our convention was
September 1962. No, it ' s before t hat . We had a board meeti ng
prior. See , because September 1962 means we would be right back
there. That is when we made t he final determination , see, we
were offset again for the Christmas boycott . It was then after
Christmas went down the tube, it was in January that we had the
meet ing down i n Dor chester [GA . ] and that's when Dr. King told me
to put together a p l an for , that Birmingham wasn ' t going to do
right and if nonviolence was va l id, it had to be tried in
Birmi ngham . Hi s view was that it was the biggest and baddest
c i ty in the South .
ANDREW MANIS: Let me ask you about that. Who originated -- can
you say there was one person who originated the idea of attacking
Bi rmingham or was it the general consensus that was developed?
5
DR. WALKER: Well , I think it was, you see , Fred had been
inviting us to Birmingham for more than a year. He said "Martin
needs to come to Birmingham ." But, you know, Martin couldn't
just come to Birmingham. We were embroiled in the Albany
business . Albany one and Albany two. Well, after our unhappy
experience with Albany one and two, Dr. King ' s analysis was
sound. He said the problem with Albany is that we were not in
charge. We were like firemen coming to a fire that was already
going. Dr. King ' s spirit was pliant enough that even though they
depended on his image to bring the news media, national and
international, the students felt like they had a right to veto
something, and Dr . King let them do it. I was very critical of
him privately. I mean to him "I don ' t think you should let these
students push you around, they haven't had any experience. " That
is why , when you read through the records, the SNCC [Student
Ninviolent Coordination Committee people] they didn't like me. I
was the ogre but that didn't bother me. So he said "What we need
to do is go where we are i n on the ground floor , where we do the
planning and we are in charge." I have no recollection of
whether he said to come to Birmingham, as I say, we ' ve always had
an open invitation. And I'll be very honest. There were some of
us, I was one of them, I wasn't anxious to go to Birmingham
because I felt I'd die in Birmingham and I wasn't ready to die .
Birmingham was a mean town . And when I left for Birmingham to go
put it together, when I kissed my wife and children goodbye down
on Carol Road in Atlanta , Georgia , I didn ' t think I would ever
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see them again. I didn't see how King, Shuttlesworth, Abernathy,
myself and maybe one or two others could ever get out of
Birmingham alive. That was a big surprise to me. I guess you've
read Taylor Branch's book. He says and he is probably right as I
remember -- I never thought about that -- that I put together
Project C and I don't think they've changed a comma, you know, I
had done my lesson and Dr. King used to say that. He'd say when
he gave me an assignment, the one thing that -- some of the
people, I wasn't very popular but being popular didn't matter to
me. I knew I could do my assigned tasks. And Dr. King used to
say, "You all think Wyatt's got funny ways but when I give him an
assignment, I don't have to think about it any more." He knew it
would be done. My interest was in pleasing him, doing what the
leader wanted.
ANDREW MANIS: When can you first recall Shuttlesworth saying,
"you all come to Birmingham" -- when did he first start agitating
to get you to come?
DR. WALKER: As long as I can remember. I can't really recall
except, as I say, I just sensed that Fred was always saying, "you
guys need SCLC needs to come to Birmingham." Because Fred was
isolated. See, Fred was really all by himself. Most of the
clergy there, 95% of it, were cowered by the tradition of
segregation and by whatever little contacts they had in white
life to which they had accommodated themselves. Fred was the
only game in town and his activism which was, as I said earlier,
was always confrontational, made a lot of Black people
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uncomfortable, you know. Their perception was that he did it
just to get pUblicity. Well, you don't get yourself half killed
just for publicity. What he did, did get publicity, but that was
not the motivating factor. Fred was trying to confront the evil
system and, you know, that was always a red herring that somebody
threw in, either white or Black. But, so he was all by himself
and he needed help. Fred did not have a major church in
Birmingham. He had angered a lot of people in the Black
community because he was very blunt in his language, you know,
talking about the Uncle Toms. I don ' t blame him, because that is
what they were. He castigated white people who deserved every
bit of what he said and more. I really think Birmingham
didn't they name a street after him recently -- Birmingham has a
great debt to someone like Shuttlesworth. As I said to you in
our telephone conversation, I'm absolutely convinced without any
reservation, Birmingham never would have been without a Fred
Shuttlesworth. You could not have come to Birmingham if there
hadn't been a Fred Shuttlesworth there. He was not just a
preacher in Birmingham with some people who were interested in
human rights. It was the very nature of his persona, his
doggedness, his tenacity, his courage, his craziness -- I mean,
all of that congealed to make Birmingham fertile for what we
needed to do. I think our coming, see, a part of the resistance
of Dr. King ' s coming was that we came for Fred Shuttlesworth.
But that didn ' t bother us because we knew -- I'm in conjecture
there. I'm presuming that Dr. King felt that - - I think he felt
8
that we owed it to Fred to come and give him some help .
ANDREW MANIS: Tell me what your impressions were of J. L. Ware,
who I assume was the main rival in the ministerial association or
conference.
DR. WALKER: Well , see, J . L. Ware had the ministers , but nobody
knew J. L. Ware , you know , maybe a few white folks. J. L. Ware
had no prominence outside of the clack of Baptist ministers.
Fred meanwhi l e was, to some degree , on the national scene. I 'm
sure that irked J . L. Ware. I never met J . L. Ware. I just knew
that he was the head of the Baptist ministers , he might have been
the state convention I mean he was a heavyweight in Black
Baptist circles but I never met him that I know of . I think I
saw him once but I wouldn ' t know him . At this stage, I'm still a
r ookie preacher, you know. And because of the nature of my job
with SCLC , there were a lot of ministers who did not know that I
was a minister because I always went by "Mr. Walker. " I never
went by "reverend . " I was "Mr . Walker . " I didn ' t have a great
many opportunities to preach. There WOUldn't be any reason for
them to know .
ANDREW MANIS: From what I ' ve heard and what I ' ve read, it seems
like the ministers in Birmingham were somewhat ambivalent about
all this. On the one hand, almost any Black in that situation
would have wanted the system to change but not necessarily the
way Shuttlesworth wanted to do it, or , how do you
DR. WALKER: What other way was there? There was no other way
for it to change other than Shuttlesworth's way? To confront itl
9
It wasn't going to change out of the goodness of white peoples '
hearts. It wasn ' t going to change in the mercantile , seats of
power , it wasn ' t going to change politically . I am saying all of
it was an exercise i n futility . Whatever excuses peopl e used and
that is the significance of Martin King , is that, what made
Birmingham work and o t her places like Birmingham , i s that Martin
King's Movement convinced Black people that this is not
acceptable to us any mor e . It ' s simple as that , yet profound . I
say he emanci pated the psyche in Black people and those whose
were ambivalent about Shuttl esworth , they wanted to make
Shuttl esworth the probl em - - Shuttlesworth wasn ' t the problem.
It was white people and the demonic nature of segregation that
was the problem .
ANDREW MANIS : What about the , for lack of a better term, you may
not like this term , I 'm not sure I like it either but , upper
middle class , middl e c l ass "Black bourgeoisie " types?
DR. WALKER: I ta l k about them all the time.
ANDREW MANIS: Gaston? Drew? How did they feel about
Shuttlesworth?
DR. WALKER: They didn ' t care much for Fred. They thought he was
too rash , and I don ' t know, you'll talk to them, you can ask
them .
ANDREW MANIS: Too unpol ished for them?
DR. WALKER: No , it wasn ' t that. See the presence of Fred
Shuttlesworth in a community l ike Birmingham in the early sixties
made Black people ashamed of themselves. See , it was the
10
uncornfortableness that the presence of a Fred Shuttlesworth
created. You have to understand how segregation is like a stain
and it's on everybody and Fred represented the person who had the
task of going around trying to wash the stain off, trying to rid
the community of that stain. And to rid it you had to have a
purging. And segregation, with the accommodation that Black
people made to it historically, if you give up segregation, then
everybody's got to give up something. Everybody's got to pay the
price. Everybody's got to absorb some pain and the people who
absorb most of the pain were going to be upper middle class
bourgeoisie Black people. So it was Fred's presence that created
uncomfortableness and the same thing is true of Martin King.
ANDREW MANIS: And yet persons like Drew or Gaston who seemed to
be more willing to support King than they were Shuttlesworth?
DR. WALKER: Well, because King had the accoutrements of what
they were striving for, Ph.D. from Boston, he was well educated
and refined and sophisticated and you know all of that. Fred was
a country preacher, right out of the rural. But you must
understand all of that is just a dodge. It didn't have anything
to do with the refinement of Martin King. Martin King and Fred
Shuttlesworth wanted exactly the same thing and they had
fundamentally the identical message. Fred just talked a little
more curt.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me back you up a little bit because obviously
the 1963 demonstrations are the key reason I am here talking to
you, but you had some interaction with Shuttlesworth during the
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freedom rides.
DR. WALKER: Let's see, did I see Fred during the freedom rides.
I talked to him mostly by phone, see, I was in Montgomery.
ANDREW MANIS: Tell me about that Sunday night the 21st of May
when there was a siege at Abernathy's church?
DR. WALKER: Oh, yeah. Fred was there. See, we were talking
about continuing the freedom rides. Some students from Nashville
wanted to continue it and we felt we should give them our
support. Fred was there that night and Dr. King had told me to
get Bobby Kennedy on the phone which I did and here again, see,
the same bourgeoisie attitude of the people you describe, Bobby
Kennedy, he didn't want to talk with Shuttlesworth because
Shuttlesworth talked rough, you know. But Shuttlesworth should
have been cursing him out at that moment. Here we are, a
thousand people in a church, with a mob outside and the Attorney
General of the United States cannot get the cooperation of the
FBI men and the marshals. I mean, they work for him. And Fred
was saying "Shit, do something, goddammit." You know what I
mean, that is the way Fred talks. That is another night .
ANDREW MANIS: Is that a direct quote?
DR. WALKER: That's close, I mean, that's close. You can check
it with him, but that's the way Fred talked.
ANDREW MANIS: Now I recall seeing in Eyes on the Prize a comment
when he spoke with the crowd where he said "The guiltiest man in
the State of Alabama tonight is Governor John Patterson." Do you
remember anything else about Shuttlesworth's activities on that
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night?
OR. WALKER: The night of May 21st? The same night we . . . .
ANDREW MANIS : Yes .
DR. WALKER: No , you see , I would not have been paying much
attention to the speeches , per se, because you know 1 1m the one
who puts things together and the crisis was already in place and
I didn't pay much attention to the speeches because I make
speeches myself, you know . I r eally don't have any recollection .
ANDREW MANIS: Not necessarily the speeches he gave but sort of
the behind-the-scenes discussions you all were having.
DR. WALKER: Well, see, we kept going in and out of the meetings .
We were meeting down in Abernathy's office , trying to find out
how we were going to get out of this fix, how we were going to
get the Federal Government involved in it, etc . etc . And
somebody would go speak and then come back . And then they ' d send
Abernathy to speak, you know , because the crowd was there. We
were trying to keep them mollified . I mean, it was a horrible
night .
ANDREW MANIS: Shuttlesworth was involved in those discussions?
DR. WALKER : Oh, yeah. Shuttlesworth , King , Abernathy, I don ' t
remember Lowery . I don 't think Lowery was there. Those were the
principals, King , Abernathy, Shuttlesworth and myself. For
instance , in my early years most of the decisions were made by
the four of us. In fact, we came to New York after the
Birmingham business and we got some award. They called us the
"Four Horsemen of Civil Rights" I guess from the four horsemen in
13
Revelation or something but, as we went along I perceived myself
as being, you know, "King, Abernathy, Shuttlesworth, Walker." I
was next in the pecking order, in the hierarchy, although my
function was different. Now you had asked earlier about Fred's
role. Fred was secretary of SCLC. He was responsible for the
recordkeeping and so far as I know he did better than a fair job
because the records of SCLC's meetings and decisions all seem to
be in order from the research that's been done since then. He
did it with a great sense of responsibility as I recall and as I
say, and I can't remember a meeting when Fred Shuttlesworth was
not present. The only time I don't remember Fred being around --
I don't remember Fred being in Albany. That's the only time
I don't remember Fred being there. It may have been for the
circumstances in Birmingham, I don't know.
ANDREW MANIS: It could have been that he was moving to
Cincinnati around that time.
DR. WALKER: Oh, I see, he was in transition.
ANDREW MANIS: I think, I'm not certain of the Albany dates. So
to get back to that night at First Baptist in Montgomery, do you
recall any particular segments of the conversation between
Shuttlesworth and the four of you?
DR. WALKER: No, the thing that I remember most is that when it
got at its worst Martin Luther King said, "The only way we are
going to save the people upstairs is we who are the leadership
have to give ourselves up to the mob." I said, "This man must be
out of his goddam mind" (to myself) you know. I remember Fred
14
saying, "Yeah, well if that's what we have to do, let's do it."
We went up these back stairs. I went with them. My heart was
not in it but that is what we were going to do . Give ourselves
up.
ANDREW MANIS: Outside?
DR. WALKER: Outside, we were just going to give ourselves up to
the mob and felt that that would appease them. Let them beat us
t o death, I guess. I don't know what King had in mind. When we
got outside it was at this point that somehow Bobby Kennedy got
his act together and the marshals were able to repulse the mob
and get them back across the park that is in front of Abernathy ' s
church and then it was just a matter -- you know, they were
throwing the tear gas canisters at the marshal shouted them i nto
the church. There were just so many -- I remember one came to us
and I remember Fred Bennett running and getting it away from Dr.
King. I remember that acrid smoke. I had heard of tear gas all
my life but that is the first time I had first hand experience
with it. It was an awful night. Then we stayed there until
daybreak and you know they federalized the National Guard and
they came and put the people on the trucks. I had some hand in
that . And then the next week or so Abernathy ' s house became the
headquarters for the freedom riders continuing through and
Shuttlesworth, to my recollection, were around there. because he
and Ruby were in the bedroom.
ANDREW MANIS: At Abernathy's house?
DR. WALKER : At Abernathy ' s house, and I stayed with somebody .
15
My wife was not there. I was in a room because we were taking
baths. I don't know how we did it. It was just incredible and I
know I used to go out to the corner and meet Brigadier General
Graham . You know I was King ' s man and that was the protoc o l you
know and he was finding out was t his all right for me . It was -­at
times it was funny. Here I am thirty years old and a
Brigadier General is finding out what is all right with me, you
know . I carried it off like I was in charge.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me move to 1963 and you essential l y planned
the strategy of Project C. I want to take you back to the
Dorchest er Center in January and that p l anning meeting where you
laid out the strategy. Did Shuttlesworth have a particular role
at that meeting? Do you r ecall anything?
DR. WALKER: I just recall, you know I made a formal presentation
and he was one of those who gave quick assent t o "this is what we
need." He was ready. He found no faul t with it. Li ke I say ,
Fred was always , he was a Wyatt T. Walker fan. I presume he is
until today . He always felt -- he had some little minor
criticisms of Martin and I think it really just had to do with
ego competition. You know, Martin got all the attention and I
can hear him saying , "Martin can ' t do this by himself, he ' s not
i n this .... " He was a lways grumbling something like that but
nothing hurtful. To me it was always unde r s tandabl e and I would
a lways try to kind of neutralize it. Then I would find myse lf
saying t o Martin, "Why don't you give Fred a call? " I know when
we had financial crises, when we were a t 41 Exchange Place
16
(tape turnover)
ANDREW MANIS: So, let me ask you since we were talking about his
relationship with the ministers in Birmingham, since you ' ve read
(Dave] Garrow's book and Branch ' s book, there are quotes in there
by John Porter where he basically says that Shuttlesworth was a
dictator and he couldn't work with people and he recounted a
situation where he said, "Porter, this is my Movement, you get in
line or you get out ." Is that believable to you?
DR. WALKER: I can see that happening in the heat of the Movement
because here again, John Porter comes from that other category.
He had a class church . I can see myself saying that in some
instances in Petersburg where I would have somebody second guess.
See Fred ' s ass was always in a sling. And here comes somebody
second guessing you who hadn't been in the trenches. I don 't
blame him. Yes. I can see that happening. I feel its
appropriate. Ultimately Porter got in Fred's Movement. It was
Fred's Movement.
ANDREW MANIS: Was he an autocrat?
DR. WALKER: I would say so. Yeah. Al l of us are who have those
kind of -- King was an autocrat.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me ask you this. Did he exercise, did you
all exercise an authority that goes beyond the bounds of
traditional authority of a Black Baptist preacher.
DR. WALKER: No, no, it was an extension of it. The SCLC, and
that was a lot of the criticism that the Roy Wilkins and the
Whitney Youngs had, that we ran it like a Baptist church and they
17
were exactly right and that is why we were so much more
successful than they were. See, and the reason why we could run
i t like that, we were not autocrats because we wanted to be .
People deferred to us because we had a track record. Black
preachers , Black Baptist preachers particularly , have an enormous
amount of power and prerogative because they serve people. When
you serve peopl e, they trust you. Now I can do a l most anything
that I want to do as a pastor of this congregation , not because
I'm such a fine individual but because I got somebody who came
l ast night whose got a daughter on crack and I responded to that.
Before my evening servi ce tonight I'll be at the Intensive Care
Unit at Mount Sinai because I got a l ady who got hit by a truck
the other night. I go to jail when their kids get arrested.
Whatever they need they can count on their pastor. That's why I
have, as other pastors , this inordinate amount of prerogative
which other people say I'm an autocrat. Now I ' m a littl e more
collegial than others because it i s my styl e, you know . I 'm sure
most of what I do, I coul d do without consent of my board. But
anything that has to be decided I discuss it with the chairman of
my board because he is a fine gentlemen. A l o t of times I bri ng
t hings to the board that don ' t really need to go to the board .
It's i n the purview of me making the decision. But I do it. My
style is a little different from the traditional. I am more
collegial than most Bl ack Baptist preachers. But by the same
token I also have more power .
ANDREW MANIS: So it's not surprising when you see the way Fred
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handles his churches, very authoritative.
DR. WALKER: Yes, see, the difference between Fred and I is that
I am the kind of pastor -- I would never have a church split
under me. I would never need to have a church split. But
because Fred has a confrontational streak, you know, "if you
don't do it my way then I'm gone" you know, and it's just a
difference in personality.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me get back to your grand strategy for Project
C. During the couple of months before the demonstrations began
where you spent six or seven weeks or however long it was in
Birmingham planning, what can you tell me about the role that
Shuttlesworth and some of the other • . •
DR. WALKER: Well, you see, I had to develop an organization.
Fred's organization was not very organized. Movements aren't I
guess. But because of the way I work and what we needed for that
major confrontation, I had to tell Fred I needed somebody to do
this. Whatever personnel I needed, Fred could get it. I must
say that the people who were in his Movement were loyal to a
fault. I mean they found no fault with Fred. I cannot remember
any instance when I needed somebody to do something, go, get,
bring, have a place to meet, it was always there. Never had a
problem.
ANDREW MANIS: Who were the Alabama Christian Movement people who
were most helpful to you in those weeks?
DR. WALKER: Oh, gee, the first name that comes to mind is Lola
Hendricks and in my recollection, she was the key to Fred's whole
19
operation.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me s t op you there. If you would, e l aborate on
that.
DR. WALKER: well, I didn't even know what Lo l a does. I think,
let's see , do you know what she does? She had some
administrative skills. She was not I don't think she was a
college graduate, but she worked in some kind of business
something. She was like a bridge between the grass roots
community and the John Drews and the Deenie Drews . People like
that and A. G. Gaston. Then there was a girl named Georgia
Price. Then there was a guy named Armstrong.
ANDREW MANIS: James Armstrong?
DR. WALKER: Yeah, and [Charles] Billups. I don 't know whether I
can call their names now. Chris McNair, was he involved?
ANDREW MANIS: He is the father of one of the girls
DR. WALKER: Yeah, I know, but I think he must have been the
photographer. Then you had the guy, Reese, who was the musician.
ANDREW MANIS: Carlton Reese.
DR. WALKER: Carlton Reese. And you had -- I don 't know the
names of the people who did the security around the meetings .
There were about fifty people who were always available . You got
fifty people available to do whatever you ask them to do, that's
a formidable operation. And Fred had a mass Movement. It was
more to him the Birmi ngham Christian Movement than it was the
Alabama Christian Movement but . There again, that is a
little clue to how Fred saw himself. Fred perceived himself as a
20
state leader when he started . I mean , why would you name a local
group -- I think probably he had in mind replacing the NAACP so
he made it Alabama.
ANDREW MANIS: The big marathon discussion on the Maundy Thursday
before the Good Friday before Martin and Abernathy decided to
march , did Shuttlesworth have much to say that night?
DR . WALKER: Oh, yeah! Let's see was it night or morning? Oh
yeah, that's right, it was night. We were up all night over in
the d i ning room. We took over the dining room. Yeah, Fred was
very vocal . Fred had as much to say as anybody.
ANDREW MANIS: Was he in favor of .
DR. WALKER: Marching?
ANDREW MANIS: Of Martin going to jai l ?
DR . WALKER: Yes , he said Martin needed to go to jail.
ANDREW MANIS : Disobeying the injunction?
DR. WALKER : Well, see, there wasn 't much discussion about that.
We had determined in Atlanta , see , a part of my homework was to
come and talk to Shores and Billingsley to find out what kind of
a legal roadblock were they going to throw in our way. We knew
the injunction was coming. We had already determined before we
left Atlanta , in my mind that if they threw one of these things
that we were going to break it.
ANDREW MANIS: So what was the big d i scussion?
DR. WALKER: Well, t he big discussion was finding people to take
people ' s places in the Movement. We were going to bring in C. T.
Vivian . [Wa l ter] Fauntroy was goi ng to take over my function
21
because I was named in the [injunction] you know, and they were
impressing upon us that we needed to be in court because there
was going to be a roll call. We had the job of deciding how you
were going to answer the roll call and keep the Movement going,
too. So what I would do, I would go in and answer the roll call
and go back and run the Movement. You know, all niggers look
alike so it didn't make any difference. Roy McBee was the
commonwealth attorney. That case took four and a half years to
get to the Supreme Court. Roy McBee never knew who I was. I
went down for the final hearing before the Supreme Court. For
lunch break I was out on the portico. I said, "How you doing,
Counsellor?1I I was being smart, you know. He said, "I don't
believe I know your name." I said, "Would you believe my name is
Wyatt T. Walker?1I He turned crimson. He gave this virulent
speech at the end of the -- down at the common pleas level about
this fellow Walker and, oh, man, he excoriated me to no end. In
fact, Fred used to tell that a lot, because I think Fred felt
that McBee should have been talking about him instead of me. You
can ask him but I always felt that Fred had just a little tinge
of resentment that McBee talked more about me than he talked
about Fred Shuttlesworth, who was the local leader, but it was
because I was at the nerve center of what was going on and I was
talking to the press and talking to the agents. I was doing
everything. I was in the trenches.
ANDREW MANIS: It's easy to kind of, in some sense, what I think
some authors do in talking about King to downgrade Shuttlesworth
22
because it is so evident that he was unpolished or that he
occasionally had feelings of jealousy towards King? That doesn ' t
bother you?
DR. WALKER : No, that's perfectly understandable. See, you have
to look at a person in terms of how they are made up. Now I
happen to be, I believe, the kind of person where it didn ' t
bother me, see , they're always ta lking about what a big ego I
have. Well, my ego , if it i s big , i t ' s transparent. But I left
a big church i n Petersburg to go be in an anonymous aid to Martin
Luther King. It didn't turn out that way, you know. But I
beli eve in the cause and so I tell people , I don 't know how many
pastors woul d do that. I have men who tel l me now, they tel l me
when they go to Petersburg and see the church, they said they
thought I left some little church . But I never had the need, and
the best illustration is Andy Young. Andy Young had a need to be
liked. I didn 't have any need to be liked. So when I was the
Executive Director of 5CLC I was a son- of- a - bitch to everybody
because, you know , when the stenographers came in, I ' d tell them
"Don 't come in at ten minutes after nine with a split and a cup
of coffee." You know, I had this strong fee ling that if you live
off the public's money , then you ' ve got to g i ve the maximum
effort . I want you here at ten minutes to nine and at nine
o ' clock I wanted those typewriters singing . I mean I ran a tight
ship. I was not l iked . It didn't bother me . But during the
time I was there my secretary , a t one t ime, Edwina Smith, who
is now Edwina Moss , married Oti s Moss, I fired her. My own
23
secretary, you know, sloppy work habits. And she went to see Dr.
King. They hired her back and she worked somewhere else. I
think she worked for Andy Young. She called me two or three
years later. She told me "Mr. Walker, when you were at SCLC I
hated you." But after you left, you were exactly what we
needed." See, you can't be an administrator if you need to be
liked. My job was to get the ball over the goal line. I got it
over the goal line at every place that I was supposed to do it.
I ran over some folks on the way and I bruised some feelings. I
talked to people hard sometimes. If you press me I'll cuss you.
I'll do that now but not as quickly as I used to. But I've
always said high profile people got to have an SOB somewhere in
the operation. Bobby Kennedy was his brother's SOB.
ANDREW MANIS: Everybody knows what Dr. King's response to the
Birmingham ministers was in "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Did
Shuttlesworth ever make any particular comments on that statement
by the ministers in Birmingham?
DR. WALKER: No, not that I recall. See I was too involved with
translating the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" from Dr. King's
chicken scratches. It took about three days in between all the
other things that I was doing. Then I was trying to get it into
print somewhere and ended up with the Quakers in Philadelphia,
America Friends Service Committee, somebody. And they called it
"Tears of Love" and I know I was disenchanted with what the
called it when I told them it should be "Letter from Birmingham
Jail. " It worked out.
24
ANDREW MANIS: Did Shuttlesworth, recognizing that you were busy
moving the troops in and out during the demonstrations, but did
you ever have an opportunity to talk to Shuttlesworth when all of
this was going on about some of the negotiations that he was
participating in?
DR. WALKER: I had no contact with the negotiations whatsoever .
I was just keeping the heat on. That was my job. When I got
word that they wanted to have like a suspension or truce, now
Taylor Branch has a lot of details in his book which are not
accurate. He claims that I was unhappy because of something that
Bevel did. Bevel and I were never at odds at anything in
Birmingham that I can recall. Bevel and I were at odds at
something that happened after Birmingham but nothing to do with
Birmingham, so I don't know where he got that from. There is a
lot of stuff in there that I didn't -- I say I want to go through
there and mark some passages and sit down with him or write him a
letter or something.
ANDREW MANIS: During the demonstrations themselves, not the
planning or the basic background, but during the demonstrations
themselves, how important was Shuttlesworth to what was going on?
DR. WALKER: I would say he was as important as a local leader
would be to any Movement . It's on his turf. I don't know what
he was doing because he was not in my operation, you know. I was
strictly at the operational center, but whenever I got called in
or went to an executive committee meeting or the strategy
committee, whatever it was, he was always there.
25
ANDREW MANIS: Well, to use your hierarchy of King, Abernathy,
Shuttl esworth, Walker, you were more or less like a general
directing troops. From what I can gather, maybe this is correct
or maybe itls not, you can correct me, it looks as if Fred tended
to be more involved in actual demonstrations than King or
Abernathy.
DR. WALKER: No, I don lt think that1s true. They were equally
involved. I donlt think any decision was made ...
ANDREW MANIS: I donlt mean decisions. I mean actually out in
the streets leading the marches.
DR. WALKER: Well, Fred only led one march that I remember.
ANDREW MANIS: The one on May 2nd or 3rd when he was .
DR. WALKER: The one where we ended up at the Post Office because
that is the one where we sent them another way.
ANDREW MANIS: Was this the one where he was slammed against the
church by the fire hose?
DR. WALKER: No, no . That was around D Day or D plus one. My
sense then, I donlt remember exactly, my feeling then about what
Fred was trying to do then was to keep the marches in some
orderly fashion. You know, make them neat and, of course, he was
recognizable by these white firemen and I think he just got the
brunt of their hatred. But itls hard to say what went on then
because we had somebody everywhere. Bevel was running them out
the church and I was on the walkie talkie trying to coordinate
with him. Somebody was bringing us reports from downtown, so it
was • • •
26
ANDREW MANIS: Generally, where would you be stationed?
DR. WALKER: I had a second floor office overlooking Ingram Park
which had been provided by A. G. Gaston. I had a three office
suite and that is where the operational he adquarters of the
demonstrations were. Two or three times a day, whenever I got
word, Bernard Lee would usually come for me, Dr. King would want
to see me, and whenever I went to see Dr. King to make a report
on where we were or what we were going to do next, Abernathy and
Shuttlesworth were there, along with I guess Andy Young was
around.
ANDREW MANIS: Was he at the motel?
DR. WALKER: Motel, yeah, we always met in room 30 or at the
lunch table when they had closed the dining room for lunch, or at
night when they closed the dining room we just made that the
meeting room. Dorothy Cotton would be there and some of the
local Birmingham people. There was no strict about who could
come to the meeting but the talking was done by King and
Shuttlesworth and Andy Young at some point. I almost always
responded to questions that were put to me or as to what I
thought should be done or where are we or how many tomorrow?
ANDREW MANIS: What was the attitude of SCLC staff people,
yourself, Bevel and other people who were there when
Shuttlesworth had something to say?
DR. WALKER: I never noticed anybody who had any attitude. I
know I didn't have any attitude. I just don't have any
recollection of anybody having any untoward or take any exception
27
to Shuttlesworth saying something.
ANDREW MANIS: Were you at the infamous meeting at the Drew's
home where .
DR. WALKER: No, as I say, negotiation was not my bag. That was
Andy Young's bag. I don't even know to this day where they live.
So I was not a party to that and did not want to be.
ANDREW MANIS: Well, as you have read about that or heard about
it, how do you interpret what happened there?
DR. WALKER: Well, I think Dr. King just made a mistake of making
a commitment without the courtesy of asking Fred. There wasn't
anything intentional. He didn't mean -- I ran into Fred. When
he heard about it he was at the motel and, you know, Taylor
Branch had some furious story that I had, somebody told him I
gave Fred something to put him to sleep, I don't know, it was off
the wall. I never knew anything about that. If somebody had
suggested that to me, I wouldn't have been a party to it. But he
was the local leader, he had a right to know. And as I say, I
know it was not done intentionally. It was just like you forget
to do things some time and I think Dr. King -- it just didn't
occur to him he ought to run this by Fred. Under normal
circumstances Fred would have been there, but Fred had been
injured by the fire hose and that is the only reason he wasn't
there. And it really wasn't, Dr. King had extracted the best
deal we could get. There wasn't anything more we could get.
Fred's whole upset was that they had made a deal and nobody told
him or asked him. That's all. It was just a human thing. And
28
he had also been hurt and upset and the strain of the Movement.
We were getting three or four hours sleep a night and sometimes
no sleep at all. So, I think too much was made of that.
ANDREW MANIS: Some of those people who made a good deal of that,
you have referred to Taylor Branch a few times, others have
talked about a cooling in the relationship of Dr. King and
Shuttlesworth after this , not necessari l y the cause of it, but
does that make any sense to you?
DR . WALKER: Nah, Dr. Ki ng was not close to Fred before. So
there wasn 't any cooling .
ANDREW MANIS: He did, in some sense , become less active •
DR . WALKER: No , no, now, see you guys are trying to make
something that doesn 't exist . The nature of the way SCLC
developed, there was not any day to day role for Fred
Shuttlesworth to play and as SCLC became big, I mean a strong
potent organization which it was, even Abernathy -- Abernathy
never, it was Walker . It was King and Walker. And I tried to
stay , you know, I was always pushing Abernathy. And as the
demands of Abernathy 's growing church , he could not go on the
road as much so it was more and more King and Walker , King and
Walker. And I began to get some of this resentment because
peopl e felt like I was having undue influence on Martin. Well ,
who shoul d have had undue influence on him other than his top
staff person . You know, I had the responsibility. I'm the one
who was keeping everything wired up. But , here again , this was
as I viewed it, guys who had, all they had ever done was run
29
churches. And SCLC was not a church. It was a major Civil
Rights organization and had to be run as such.
ANDREW MANIS: As we finish up here, I appreciate your time.
DR. WALKER: And my candor, right? {Laughs.]
ANDREW MANIS: Absolutely. You did mention just now that King
and Shuttlesworth were not close. Could you elaborate on that?
DR. WALKER: Well, I mean they were not close like Abernathy and
King were close. Who else was King close to? I mean, he wasn't
close to Joe Lowery. I'm talking about close like, we have the
expression "boon coons" you know. Abernathy was his brother. He
was closer to Abernathy than he was to his brother, A. D. I mean
Abernathy had a very unique place in Martin King's life and when
anybody -- I was not as close to Martin in that sense as
Abernathy was. My closeness to King had to do with the
organizational operation. And nobody was as close as I was. Now
see this is another thing that got in my craw with Taylor. He
says that Stanley Levinson was quoted as saying that my ego
always had me in conflict with the organization. He doesn't know
what in the hell he is talking about. In a literal sense I was
the organization. He can't find anybody who said I was in
conflict with the organization. I never did anything that wasn't
ratified by Martin King. It was my sense of reverence for his
leadership and my sense of propriety as to what my job was. If
something didn't please the leader I was through with it. He
always gave me and I told him when I went to work for him that I
wanted an opportunity to say what I had to say and if you say
30
otherwise, you're the president and I will do what you say. We
had that understanding. The only cross word we ever had was in
Birmingham in Room 30. He called me and asked me about something
and I had been up two or three nights. No sleep. I just threw
my clipboard down and said "I can't be everywhere." He said,
"Wait a minute, wait a minute! I'm the president." I said, "I'm
sorry, leader." I apologized immediately. It was just
weariness. Because he was the last person in the world I wanted
to offend and that is the only cross word we ever had. Martin
King said publicly and privately that when he was bringing me to
SCLC he asked the preachers in my town who I worked with, Reid
and Williams, what did they think about him bringing me. The two
guys who I worked with, they told him they thought it would be a
mistake. He told me later that that's what they said. And then
Sam Proctor, do you know the name Samuel DeWitt Proctor? Sam
Proctor, I am doing his luncheon tomorrow. Sam Proctor told King
"if you bring T. Walker there, that will be the worst mistake you
ever made. II Then I saw Sam in the same time period. He was
going to speak for Rip Daniel at Virginia State. He told me, "I
hear you are going to go down and work with King?" I said,
"Yeah, I'm thinking about it." He said, "Let me tell you, if you
go down there to Atlanta, it will be the worst mistake you ever
made." So I went home and told my wife, "Honey, we're going to
Atlanta. Sam Proctor told me if we go to Atlanta, it will be the
worst mistake I have made. If he thinks it's the worst, I know
its a good thing to do. II But what I am saying is afterwards he
31
told me that it was the best decision he ever made. He said ,
"All of the predictions that I would get i n the way and try to be
upstaging," he said he "never had any inkling at any time , that I
hadn 't been exactly he wanted someone the organization ...
ANDREW MANIS: Well , again , thank you for your time and input.
32

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Holding.Institution

Birmingham Public Library (Alabama)

Full Text

This is an interview with Andrew Manis of Xavier University and
an interview with Dr. Wyatt Wa l ker. [This intervi ew was
conducted on April 20, 1989 , at Canaan Baptist Church, New York
City.)
ANDREW MANIS : Could you rehash what we have a l ready gone over
about your meeting with Fred Shuttlesworth.
DR. WALKER: I f irst met Fred Shuttlesworth and since you
mentioned it, I am sure it is after he came to national
prominence with the bombing of his home but it was around 1 956 or
1957 and I was the leader of the Movement in Petersburg,
Virginia . I invited him to come and be the mass meeti ng speaker
for our Movement which was called the Petersburg Improvement
Association. We had patterned it directl y after the MIA, the
Montgomery Improvement Association.
ANDREW MANIS: What were your impressions of him -- the obvious
thing is about his courage -- but in terms of his preaching
style , his theologi cal perspectives, exper tise , or l ack of it?
DR. WALKER: Well, now that you mention it live always known that
Fred does not have theo l ogical training and a person who does not
have the discipline of theol ogical training , it is immediately
transmitted when you hear them speak . The odd thing is, as far
as I know, I have never heard Fred Shuttlesworth preach. live
only heard him speak , you know , and it has always been i n the
mass meeting situation. Fred used to travel a good deal with Dr .
King , and Abernathy and us when we were on fundrais ing tours when
we were on the West Coast and the Midwest or wherever and we kind
1
of had a little pattern. I usually, because in that group I was
of the briefest tenure, I would do about six minutes to get the
crowd up and then Fred would come on and speak for maybe eight or
ten or twelve, maybe fourteen. Then Abernathy would come and
give kind of a full presentation, maybe fifteen or eighteen
minutes and then go right to the offering. Then after the
offering was lifted and then Dr. King would come with the major
address. We called this the SCLC hour. The local group, I had
designed how to promote a Martin Luther King rally. We gave them
some outline of how to do it and we termed it the SCLC hour.
Sometimes Fred would not be with us so Abernathy and I did it, or
if we had a student with us, you know. That's the way we handled
it. So I've only heard Fred in those kinds of situations. I
don't know if I've ever heard Fred preach. I have no
recollection. Now I know his speaking style is ah it's
charitable to say its amorphous. It has no particular shape,
but, you know, that's Fred.
ANDREW MANIS: How do you separate, given the fact that Black
ministers have tended to put together their preaching of the
Gospel with Civil Rights, how do you separate a sermon from a
speech?
DR. WALKER: Well, that's difficult. A sermon is focused in my
experience directly at trying to win souls for Christ, whereas a
mass meeting speech, for instance, I do maybe 150 talks a year of
some sort in a variety of settings -- banquets, anniversaries, or
groups, Martin Luther King celebrations, etc. But the vehicle of
2
whatever I have to say is always in the preaching mode. It is
hortatory. It is usually very strongly biblically based and Fred
would have that same stance.
ANDREW MANIS: Would he have a biblical text that he might weave
in and out of?
DR. WALKER: Well, half of the times, yes, and half of the times
no. It depends again upon the situation. For instance, I was at
Colgate - Rochester [Divinity School] not long ago and the text
that I had for the annual Martin Luther King address was one I
made up. But the tradition of preachers in the Black free
church, we use a text of some sort, no matter what the
assignment, whether its Rotary, or a high school commencement or
another pastor's anniversary banquet. We don't have any hangup
about using the Bible as a reference. And I would say that, as I
think about Fred's speeches, you would often have some preaching
in it, you know, with direct references to the Bible, talking
about the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace or Job, you
know, which is characteristic of our kind of speaking. But Fred
seldom had, I mean, it is difficult to think, "What is Fred's
structure? What is his introduction? What is his first point?
His second point?"
ANDREW MANIS: Well, I have heard a few sermons in his church and
they are very much the same way.
DR. WALKER: Without form and structure?
ANDREW MANIS: Well, it's hard to pick it out, yes. But perhaps
form and structure is . .
3
DR. WALKER: Yeah, and I need to say that I am not wedded to
Western yardsticks, you know. Fred has been an effective
leadership person, both in Birmingham and I presume in
Cincinnati. I mean he left a church there and then built a
church . Now when you get a church up off the ground from square
one, that takes a lot of doing. So he has some gifts. Whether he
does that with sermons with three points or sermons with no
points or with forty alleged points there is still some value to
what he does .
ANDREW MANIS: Let me get to, and any time you want to season
your comments with anecdotes, so much the better but what was his
role? You mentioned in situations like fundraising trips, he was
secretary or an officer of SCLC and I presume was regular in
meetings and board meetings • .
DR. WALKER: Oh, yes, Fred never missed . If Fred was ill Fred
would not come, but I have no recollection of SCLC having any
kind of meeting in which Fred was not present.
ANDREW MANIS: Was he active? Did he make vocal
DR. WALKER: Oh, Lord, yes . Fred was very vocal and he had one
penchant that he stayed on and that was "We need to have some
action ." That's all he talked about. I remember when , see we
were in Birmingham in May of 1962, that's my -- I think I 'm
right -- May of 1962 or earlier than that. We had a Board
meeting and we were talking about an Easter boycott and the folks
downtown, you know, got in with some comfortable Negroes and it
didn ' t come off. We didn't p l an it because they said they were
4
going to take down the s i gns and when this news got around , Fred
said, "I'm gonna te l l you what t hey're gonna do. They ' re going
to take them down and they they ' re gonna put them right back up. "
And that's exactly what happened . So then we began to tool up
for Christmas of 1962 . We went through the same thi ng and Fred
told us then , "They won ' t keep their word. "
ANDREW MANIS: In September of 1962 SCLC convention was i n
Birmi ngham.
DR. WALKER: Yes , that ' s right . That ' s when we were p l anning .
Because that ' s when the fe l low slugged Dr . King over in the,
what ' s the old man's name, Gaston buildi ng . He was mentioning
about Sammy Davis doi ng a benefit and we were getting ready for
the next Eas t er. That ' s what it was . Our convention was
September 1962. No, it ' s before t hat . We had a board meeti ng
prior. See , because September 1962 means we would be right back
there. That is when we made t he final determination , see, we
were offset again for the Christmas boycott . It was then after
Christmas went down the tube, it was in January that we had the
meet ing down i n Dor chester [GA . ] and that's when Dr. King told me
to put together a p l an for , that Birmingham wasn ' t going to do
right and if nonviolence was va l id, it had to be tried in
Birmi ngham . Hi s view was that it was the biggest and baddest
c i ty in the South .
ANDREW MANIS: Let me ask you about that. Who originated -- can
you say there was one person who originated the idea of attacking
Bi rmingham or was it the general consensus that was developed?
5
DR. WALKER: Well , I think it was, you see , Fred had been
inviting us to Birmingham for more than a year. He said "Martin
needs to come to Birmingham ." But, you know, Martin couldn't
just come to Birmingham. We were embroiled in the Albany
business . Albany one and Albany two. Well, after our unhappy
experience with Albany one and two, Dr. King ' s analysis was
sound. He said the problem with Albany is that we were not in
charge. We were like firemen coming to a fire that was already
going. Dr. King ' s spirit was pliant enough that even though they
depended on his image to bring the news media, national and
international, the students felt like they had a right to veto
something, and Dr . King let them do it. I was very critical of
him privately. I mean to him "I don ' t think you should let these
students push you around, they haven't had any experience. " That
is why , when you read through the records, the SNCC [Student
Ninviolent Coordination Committee people] they didn't like me. I
was the ogre but that didn't bother me. So he said "What we need
to do is go where we are i n on the ground floor , where we do the
planning and we are in charge." I have no recollection of
whether he said to come to Birmingham, as I say, we ' ve always had
an open invitation. And I'll be very honest. There were some of
us, I was one of them, I wasn't anxious to go to Birmingham
because I felt I'd die in Birmingham and I wasn't ready to die .
Birmingham was a mean town . And when I left for Birmingham to go
put it together, when I kissed my wife and children goodbye down
on Carol Road in Atlanta , Georgia , I didn ' t think I would ever
6
see them again. I didn't see how King, Shuttlesworth, Abernathy,
myself and maybe one or two others could ever get out of
Birmingham alive. That was a big surprise to me. I guess you've
read Taylor Branch's book. He says and he is probably right as I
remember -- I never thought about that -- that I put together
Project C and I don't think they've changed a comma, you know, I
had done my lesson and Dr. King used to say that. He'd say when
he gave me an assignment, the one thing that -- some of the
people, I wasn't very popular but being popular didn't matter to
me. I knew I could do my assigned tasks. And Dr. King used to
say, "You all think Wyatt's got funny ways but when I give him an
assignment, I don't have to think about it any more." He knew it
would be done. My interest was in pleasing him, doing what the
leader wanted.
ANDREW MANIS: When can you first recall Shuttlesworth saying,
"you all come to Birmingham" -- when did he first start agitating
to get you to come?
DR. WALKER: As long as I can remember. I can't really recall
except, as I say, I just sensed that Fred was always saying, "you
guys need SCLC needs to come to Birmingham." Because Fred was
isolated. See, Fred was really all by himself. Most of the
clergy there, 95% of it, were cowered by the tradition of
segregation and by whatever little contacts they had in white
life to which they had accommodated themselves. Fred was the
only game in town and his activism which was, as I said earlier,
was always confrontational, made a lot of Black people
7
uncomfortable, you know. Their perception was that he did it
just to get pUblicity. Well, you don't get yourself half killed
just for publicity. What he did, did get publicity, but that was
not the motivating factor. Fred was trying to confront the evil
system and, you know, that was always a red herring that somebody
threw in, either white or Black. But, so he was all by himself
and he needed help. Fred did not have a major church in
Birmingham. He had angered a lot of people in the Black
community because he was very blunt in his language, you know,
talking about the Uncle Toms. I don ' t blame him, because that is
what they were. He castigated white people who deserved every
bit of what he said and more. I really think Birmingham
didn't they name a street after him recently -- Birmingham has a
great debt to someone like Shuttlesworth. As I said to you in
our telephone conversation, I'm absolutely convinced without any
reservation, Birmingham never would have been without a Fred
Shuttlesworth. You could not have come to Birmingham if there
hadn't been a Fred Shuttlesworth there. He was not just a
preacher in Birmingham with some people who were interested in
human rights. It was the very nature of his persona, his
doggedness, his tenacity, his courage, his craziness -- I mean,
all of that congealed to make Birmingham fertile for what we
needed to do. I think our coming, see, a part of the resistance
of Dr. King ' s coming was that we came for Fred Shuttlesworth.
But that didn ' t bother us because we knew -- I'm in conjecture
there. I'm presuming that Dr. King felt that - - I think he felt
8
that we owed it to Fred to come and give him some help .
ANDREW MANIS: Tell me what your impressions were of J. L. Ware,
who I assume was the main rival in the ministerial association or
conference.
DR. WALKER: Well , see, J . L. Ware had the ministers , but nobody
knew J. L. Ware , you know , maybe a few white folks. J. L. Ware
had no prominence outside of the clack of Baptist ministers.
Fred meanwhi l e was, to some degree , on the national scene. I 'm
sure that irked J . L. Ware. I never met J . L. Ware. I just knew
that he was the head of the Baptist ministers , he might have been
the state convention I mean he was a heavyweight in Black
Baptist circles but I never met him that I know of . I think I
saw him once but I wouldn ' t know him . At this stage, I'm still a
r ookie preacher, you know. And because of the nature of my job
with SCLC , there were a lot of ministers who did not know that I
was a minister because I always went by "Mr. Walker. " I never
went by "reverend . " I was "Mr . Walker . " I didn ' t have a great
many opportunities to preach. There WOUldn't be any reason for
them to know .
ANDREW MANIS: From what I ' ve heard and what I ' ve read, it seems
like the ministers in Birmingham were somewhat ambivalent about
all this. On the one hand, almost any Black in that situation
would have wanted the system to change but not necessarily the
way Shuttlesworth wanted to do it, or , how do you
DR. WALKER: What other way was there? There was no other way
for it to change other than Shuttlesworth's way? To confront itl
9
It wasn't going to change out of the goodness of white peoples '
hearts. It wasn ' t going to change in the mercantile , seats of
power , it wasn ' t going to change politically . I am saying all of
it was an exercise i n futility . Whatever excuses peopl e used and
that is the significance of Martin King , is that, what made
Birmingham work and o t her places like Birmingham , i s that Martin
King's Movement convinced Black people that this is not
acceptable to us any mor e . It ' s simple as that , yet profound . I
say he emanci pated the psyche in Black people and those whose
were ambivalent about Shuttl esworth , they wanted to make
Shuttl esworth the probl em - - Shuttlesworth wasn ' t the problem.
It was white people and the demonic nature of segregation that
was the problem .
ANDREW MANIS : What about the , for lack of a better term, you may
not like this term , I 'm not sure I like it either but , upper
middle class , middl e c l ass "Black bourgeoisie " types?
DR. WALKER: I ta l k about them all the time.
ANDREW MANIS: Gaston? Drew? How did they feel about
Shuttlesworth?
DR. WALKER: They didn ' t care much for Fred. They thought he was
too rash , and I don ' t know, you'll talk to them, you can ask
them .
ANDREW MANIS: Too unpol ished for them?
DR. WALKER: No , it wasn ' t that. See the presence of Fred
Shuttlesworth in a community l ike Birmingham in the early sixties
made Black people ashamed of themselves. See , it was the
10
uncornfortableness that the presence of a Fred Shuttlesworth
created. You have to understand how segregation is like a stain
and it's on everybody and Fred represented the person who had the
task of going around trying to wash the stain off, trying to rid
the community of that stain. And to rid it you had to have a
purging. And segregation, with the accommodation that Black
people made to it historically, if you give up segregation, then
everybody's got to give up something. Everybody's got to pay the
price. Everybody's got to absorb some pain and the people who
absorb most of the pain were going to be upper middle class
bourgeoisie Black people. So it was Fred's presence that created
uncomfortableness and the same thing is true of Martin King.
ANDREW MANIS: And yet persons like Drew or Gaston who seemed to
be more willing to support King than they were Shuttlesworth?
DR. WALKER: Well, because King had the accoutrements of what
they were striving for, Ph.D. from Boston, he was well educated
and refined and sophisticated and you know all of that. Fred was
a country preacher, right out of the rural. But you must
understand all of that is just a dodge. It didn't have anything
to do with the refinement of Martin King. Martin King and Fred
Shuttlesworth wanted exactly the same thing and they had
fundamentally the identical message. Fred just talked a little
more curt.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me back you up a little bit because obviously
the 1963 demonstrations are the key reason I am here talking to
you, but you had some interaction with Shuttlesworth during the
11
freedom rides.
DR. WALKER: Let's see, did I see Fred during the freedom rides.
I talked to him mostly by phone, see, I was in Montgomery.
ANDREW MANIS: Tell me about that Sunday night the 21st of May
when there was a siege at Abernathy's church?
DR. WALKER: Oh, yeah. Fred was there. See, we were talking
about continuing the freedom rides. Some students from Nashville
wanted to continue it and we felt we should give them our
support. Fred was there that night and Dr. King had told me to
get Bobby Kennedy on the phone which I did and here again, see,
the same bourgeoisie attitude of the people you describe, Bobby
Kennedy, he didn't want to talk with Shuttlesworth because
Shuttlesworth talked rough, you know. But Shuttlesworth should
have been cursing him out at that moment. Here we are, a
thousand people in a church, with a mob outside and the Attorney
General of the United States cannot get the cooperation of the
FBI men and the marshals. I mean, they work for him. And Fred
was saying "Shit, do something, goddammit." You know what I
mean, that is the way Fred talks. That is another night .
ANDREW MANIS: Is that a direct quote?
DR. WALKER: That's close, I mean, that's close. You can check
it with him, but that's the way Fred talked.
ANDREW MANIS: Now I recall seeing in Eyes on the Prize a comment
when he spoke with the crowd where he said "The guiltiest man in
the State of Alabama tonight is Governor John Patterson." Do you
remember anything else about Shuttlesworth's activities on that
12
night?
OR. WALKER: The night of May 21st? The same night we . . . .
ANDREW MANIS : Yes .
DR. WALKER: No , you see , I would not have been paying much
attention to the speeches , per se, because you know 1 1m the one
who puts things together and the crisis was already in place and
I didn't pay much attention to the speeches because I make
speeches myself, you know . I r eally don't have any recollection .
ANDREW MANIS: Not necessarily the speeches he gave but sort of
the behind-the-scenes discussions you all were having.
DR. WALKER: Well, see, we kept going in and out of the meetings .
We were meeting down in Abernathy's office , trying to find out
how we were going to get out of this fix, how we were going to
get the Federal Government involved in it, etc . etc . And
somebody would go speak and then come back . And then they ' d send
Abernathy to speak, you know , because the crowd was there. We
were trying to keep them mollified . I mean, it was a horrible
night .
ANDREW MANIS: Shuttlesworth was involved in those discussions?
DR. WALKER : Oh, yeah. Shuttlesworth , King , Abernathy, I don ' t
remember Lowery . I don 't think Lowery was there. Those were the
principals, King , Abernathy, Shuttlesworth and myself. For
instance , in my early years most of the decisions were made by
the four of us. In fact, we came to New York after the
Birmingham business and we got some award. They called us the
"Four Horsemen of Civil Rights" I guess from the four horsemen in
13
Revelation or something but, as we went along I perceived myself
as being, you know, "King, Abernathy, Shuttlesworth, Walker." I
was next in the pecking order, in the hierarchy, although my
function was different. Now you had asked earlier about Fred's
role. Fred was secretary of SCLC. He was responsible for the
recordkeeping and so far as I know he did better than a fair job
because the records of SCLC's meetings and decisions all seem to
be in order from the research that's been done since then. He
did it with a great sense of responsibility as I recall and as I
say, and I can't remember a meeting when Fred Shuttlesworth was
not present. The only time I don't remember Fred being around --
I don't remember Fred being in Albany. That's the only time
I don't remember Fred being there. It may have been for the
circumstances in Birmingham, I don't know.
ANDREW MANIS: It could have been that he was moving to
Cincinnati around that time.
DR. WALKER: Oh, I see, he was in transition.
ANDREW MANIS: I think, I'm not certain of the Albany dates. So
to get back to that night at First Baptist in Montgomery, do you
recall any particular segments of the conversation between
Shuttlesworth and the four of you?
DR. WALKER: No, the thing that I remember most is that when it
got at its worst Martin Luther King said, "The only way we are
going to save the people upstairs is we who are the leadership
have to give ourselves up to the mob." I said, "This man must be
out of his goddam mind" (to myself) you know. I remember Fred
14
saying, "Yeah, well if that's what we have to do, let's do it."
We went up these back stairs. I went with them. My heart was
not in it but that is what we were going to do . Give ourselves
up.
ANDREW MANIS: Outside?
DR. WALKER: Outside, we were just going to give ourselves up to
the mob and felt that that would appease them. Let them beat us
t o death, I guess. I don't know what King had in mind. When we
got outside it was at this point that somehow Bobby Kennedy got
his act together and the marshals were able to repulse the mob
and get them back across the park that is in front of Abernathy ' s
church and then it was just a matter -- you know, they were
throwing the tear gas canisters at the marshal shouted them i nto
the church. There were just so many -- I remember one came to us
and I remember Fred Bennett running and getting it away from Dr.
King. I remember that acrid smoke. I had heard of tear gas all
my life but that is the first time I had first hand experience
with it. It was an awful night. Then we stayed there until
daybreak and you know they federalized the National Guard and
they came and put the people on the trucks. I had some hand in
that . And then the next week or so Abernathy ' s house became the
headquarters for the freedom riders continuing through and
Shuttlesworth, to my recollection, were around there. because he
and Ruby were in the bedroom.
ANDREW MANIS: At Abernathy's house?
DR. WALKER : At Abernathy ' s house, and I stayed with somebody .
15
My wife was not there. I was in a room because we were taking
baths. I don't know how we did it. It was just incredible and I
know I used to go out to the corner and meet Brigadier General
Graham . You know I was King ' s man and that was the protoc o l you
know and he was finding out was t his all right for me . It was -­at
times it was funny. Here I am thirty years old and a
Brigadier General is finding out what is all right with me, you
know . I carried it off like I was in charge.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me move to 1963 and you essential l y planned
the strategy of Project C. I want to take you back to the
Dorchest er Center in January and that p l anning meeting where you
laid out the strategy. Did Shuttlesworth have a particular role
at that meeting? Do you r ecall anything?
DR. WALKER: I just recall, you know I made a formal presentation
and he was one of those who gave quick assent t o "this is what we
need." He was ready. He found no faul t with it. Li ke I say ,
Fred was always , he was a Wyatt T. Walker fan. I presume he is
until today . He always felt -- he had some little minor
criticisms of Martin and I think it really just had to do with
ego competition. You know, Martin got all the attention and I
can hear him saying , "Martin can ' t do this by himself, he ' s not
i n this .... " He was a lways grumbling something like that but
nothing hurtful. To me it was always unde r s tandabl e and I would
a lways try to kind of neutralize it. Then I would find myse lf
saying t o Martin, "Why don't you give Fred a call? " I know when
we had financial crises, when we were a t 41 Exchange Place
16
(tape turnover)
ANDREW MANIS: So, let me ask you since we were talking about his
relationship with the ministers in Birmingham, since you ' ve read
(Dave] Garrow's book and Branch ' s book, there are quotes in there
by John Porter where he basically says that Shuttlesworth was a
dictator and he couldn't work with people and he recounted a
situation where he said, "Porter, this is my Movement, you get in
line or you get out ." Is that believable to you?
DR. WALKER: I can see that happening in the heat of the Movement
because here again, John Porter comes from that other category.
He had a class church . I can see myself saying that in some
instances in Petersburg where I would have somebody second guess.
See Fred ' s ass was always in a sling. And here comes somebody
second guessing you who hadn't been in the trenches. I don 't
blame him. Yes. I can see that happening. I feel its
appropriate. Ultimately Porter got in Fred's Movement. It was
Fred's Movement.
ANDREW MANIS: Was he an autocrat?
DR. WALKER: I would say so. Yeah. Al l of us are who have those
kind of -- King was an autocrat.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me ask you this. Did he exercise, did you
all exercise an authority that goes beyond the bounds of
traditional authority of a Black Baptist preacher.
DR. WALKER: No, no, it was an extension of it. The SCLC, and
that was a lot of the criticism that the Roy Wilkins and the
Whitney Youngs had, that we ran it like a Baptist church and they
17
were exactly right and that is why we were so much more
successful than they were. See, and the reason why we could run
i t like that, we were not autocrats because we wanted to be .
People deferred to us because we had a track record. Black
preachers , Black Baptist preachers particularly , have an enormous
amount of power and prerogative because they serve people. When
you serve peopl e, they trust you. Now I can do a l most anything
that I want to do as a pastor of this congregation , not because
I'm such a fine individual but because I got somebody who came
l ast night whose got a daughter on crack and I responded to that.
Before my evening servi ce tonight I'll be at the Intensive Care
Unit at Mount Sinai because I got a l ady who got hit by a truck
the other night. I go to jail when their kids get arrested.
Whatever they need they can count on their pastor. That's why I
have, as other pastors , this inordinate amount of prerogative
which other people say I'm an autocrat. Now I ' m a littl e more
collegial than others because it i s my styl e, you know . I 'm sure
most of what I do, I coul d do without consent of my board. But
anything that has to be decided I discuss it with the chairman of
my board because he is a fine gentlemen. A l o t of times I bri ng
t hings to the board that don ' t really need to go to the board .
It's i n the purview of me making the decision. But I do it. My
style is a little different from the traditional. I am more
collegial than most Bl ack Baptist preachers. But by the same
token I also have more power .
ANDREW MANIS: So it's not surprising when you see the way Fred
18
handles his churches, very authoritative.
DR. WALKER: Yes, see, the difference between Fred and I is that
I am the kind of pastor -- I would never have a church split
under me. I would never need to have a church split. But
because Fred has a confrontational streak, you know, "if you
don't do it my way then I'm gone" you know, and it's just a
difference in personality.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me get back to your grand strategy for Project
C. During the couple of months before the demonstrations began
where you spent six or seven weeks or however long it was in
Birmingham planning, what can you tell me about the role that
Shuttlesworth and some of the other • . •
DR. WALKER: Well, you see, I had to develop an organization.
Fred's organization was not very organized. Movements aren't I
guess. But because of the way I work and what we needed for that
major confrontation, I had to tell Fred I needed somebody to do
this. Whatever personnel I needed, Fred could get it. I must
say that the people who were in his Movement were loyal to a
fault. I mean they found no fault with Fred. I cannot remember
any instance when I needed somebody to do something, go, get,
bring, have a place to meet, it was always there. Never had a
problem.
ANDREW MANIS: Who were the Alabama Christian Movement people who
were most helpful to you in those weeks?
DR. WALKER: Oh, gee, the first name that comes to mind is Lola
Hendricks and in my recollection, she was the key to Fred's whole
19
operation.
ANDREW MANIS: Let me s t op you there. If you would, e l aborate on
that.
DR. WALKER: well, I didn't even know what Lo l a does. I think,
let's see , do you know what she does? She had some
administrative skills. She was not I don't think she was a
college graduate, but she worked in some kind of business
something. She was like a bridge between the grass roots
community and the John Drews and the Deenie Drews . People like
that and A. G. Gaston. Then there was a girl named Georgia
Price. Then there was a guy named Armstrong.
ANDREW MANIS: James Armstrong?
DR. WALKER: Yeah, and [Charles] Billups. I don 't know whether I
can call their names now. Chris McNair, was he involved?
ANDREW MANIS: He is the father of one of the girls
DR. WALKER: Yeah, I know, but I think he must have been the
photographer. Then you had the guy, Reese, who was the musician.
ANDREW MANIS: Carlton Reese.
DR. WALKER: Carlton Reese. And you had -- I don 't know the
names of the people who did the security around the meetings .
There were about fifty people who were always available . You got
fifty people available to do whatever you ask them to do, that's
a formidable operation. And Fred had a mass Movement. It was
more to him the Birmi ngham Christian Movement than it was the
Alabama Christian Movement but . There again, that is a
little clue to how Fred saw himself. Fred perceived himself as a
20
state leader when he started . I mean , why would you name a local
group -- I think probably he had in mind replacing the NAACP so
he made it Alabama.
ANDREW MANIS: The big marathon discussion on the Maundy Thursday
before the Good Friday before Martin and Abernathy decided to
march , did Shuttlesworth have much to say that night?
DR . WALKER: Oh, yeah! Let's see was it night or morning? Oh
yeah, that's right, it was night. We were up all night over in
the d i ning room. We took over the dining room. Yeah, Fred was
very vocal . Fred had as much to say as anybody.
ANDREW MANIS: Was he in favor of .
DR. WALKER: Marching?
ANDREW MANIS: Of Martin going to jai l ?
DR . WALKER: Yes , he said Martin needed to go to jail.
ANDREW MANIS : Disobeying the injunction?
DR. WALKER : Well, see, there wasn 't much discussion about that.
We had determined in Atlanta , see , a part of my homework was to
come and talk to Shores and Billingsley to find out what kind of
a legal roadblock were they going to throw in our way. We knew
the injunction was coming. We had already determined before we
left Atlanta , in my mind that if they threw one of these things
that we were going to break it.
ANDREW MANIS: So what was the big d i scussion?
DR. WALKER: Well, t he big discussion was finding people to take
people ' s places in the Movement. We were going to bring in C. T.
Vivian . [Wa l ter] Fauntroy was goi ng to take over my function
21
because I was named in the [injunction] you know, and they were
impressing upon us that we needed to be in court because there
was going to be a roll call. We had the job of deciding how you
were going to answer the roll call and keep the Movement going,
too. So what I would do, I would go in and answer the roll call
and go back and run the Movement. You know, all niggers look
alike so it didn't make any difference. Roy McBee was the
commonwealth attorney. That case took four and a half years to
get to the Supreme Court. Roy McBee never knew who I was. I
went down for the final hearing before the Supreme Court. For
lunch break I was out on the portico. I said, "How you doing,
Counsellor?1I I was being smart, you know. He said, "I don't
believe I know your name." I said, "Would you believe my name is
Wyatt T. Walker?1I He turned crimson. He gave this virulent
speech at the end of the -- down at the common pleas level about
this fellow Walker and, oh, man, he excoriated me to no end. In
fact, Fred used to tell that a lot, because I think Fred felt
that McBee should have been talking about him instead of me. You
can ask him but I always felt that Fred had just a little tinge
of resentment that McBee talked more about me than he talked
about Fred Shuttlesworth, who was the local leader, but it was
because I was at the nerve center of what was going on and I was
talking to the press and talking to the agents. I was doing
everything. I was in the trenches.
ANDREW MANIS: It's easy to kind of, in some sense, what I think
some authors do in talking about King to downgrade Shuttlesworth
22
because it is so evident that he was unpolished or that he
occasionally had feelings of jealousy towards King? That doesn ' t
bother you?
DR. WALKER : No, that's perfectly understandable. See, you have
to look at a person in terms of how they are made up. Now I
happen to be, I believe, the kind of person where it didn ' t
bother me, see , they're always ta lking about what a big ego I
have. Well, my ego , if it i s big , i t ' s transparent. But I left
a big church i n Petersburg to go be in an anonymous aid to Martin
Luther King. It didn't turn out that way, you know. But I
beli eve in the cause and so I tell people , I don 't know how many
pastors woul d do that. I have men who tel l me now, they tel l me
when they go to Petersburg and see the church, they said they
thought I left some little church . But I never had the need, and
the best illustration is Andy Young. Andy Young had a need to be
liked. I didn 't have any need to be liked. So when I was the
Executive Director of 5CLC I was a son- of- a - bitch to everybody
because, you know , when the stenographers came in, I ' d tell them
"Don 't come in at ten minutes after nine with a split and a cup
of coffee." You know, I had this strong fee ling that if you live
off the public's money , then you ' ve got to g i ve the maximum
effort . I want you here at ten minutes to nine and at nine
o ' clock I wanted those typewriters singing . I mean I ran a tight
ship. I was not l iked . It didn't bother me . But during the
time I was there my secretary , a t one t ime, Edwina Smith, who
is now Edwina Moss , married Oti s Moss, I fired her. My own
23
secretary, you know, sloppy work habits. And she went to see Dr.
King. They hired her back and she worked somewhere else. I
think she worked for Andy Young. She called me two or three
years later. She told me "Mr. Walker, when you were at SCLC I
hated you." But after you left, you were exactly what we
needed." See, you can't be an administrator if you need to be
liked. My job was to get the ball over the goal line. I got it
over the goal line at every place that I was supposed to do it.
I ran over some folks on the way and I bruised some feelings. I
talked to people hard sometimes. If you press me I'll cuss you.
I'll do that now but not as quickly as I used to. But I've
always said high profile people got to have an SOB somewhere in
the operation. Bobby Kennedy was his brother's SOB.
ANDREW MANIS: Everybody knows what Dr. King's response to the
Birmingham ministers was in "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Did
Shuttlesworth ever make any particular comments on that statement
by the ministers in Birmingham?
DR. WALKER: No, not that I recall. See I was too involved with
translating the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" from Dr. King's
chicken scratches. It took about three days in between all the
other things that I was doing. Then I was trying to get it into
print somewhere and ended up with the Quakers in Philadelphia,
America Friends Service Committee, somebody. And they called it
"Tears of Love" and I know I was disenchanted with what the
called it when I told them it should be "Letter from Birmingham
Jail. " It worked out.
24
ANDREW MANIS: Did Shuttlesworth, recognizing that you were busy
moving the troops in and out during the demonstrations, but did
you ever have an opportunity to talk to Shuttlesworth when all of
this was going on about some of the negotiations that he was
participating in?
DR. WALKER: I had no contact with the negotiations whatsoever .
I was just keeping the heat on. That was my job. When I got
word that they wanted to have like a suspension or truce, now
Taylor Branch has a lot of details in his book which are not
accurate. He claims that I was unhappy because of something that
Bevel did. Bevel and I were never at odds at anything in
Birmingham that I can recall. Bevel and I were at odds at
something that happened after Birmingham but nothing to do with
Birmingham, so I don't know where he got that from. There is a
lot of stuff in there that I didn't -- I say I want to go through
there and mark some passages and sit down with him or write him a
letter or something.
ANDREW MANIS: During the demonstrations themselves, not the
planning or the basic background, but during the demonstrations
themselves, how important was Shuttlesworth to what was going on?
DR. WALKER: I would say he was as important as a local leader
would be to any Movement . It's on his turf. I don't know what
he was doing because he was not in my operation, you know. I was
strictly at the operational center, but whenever I got called in
or went to an executive committee meeting or the strategy
committee, whatever it was, he was always there.
25
ANDREW MANIS: Well, to use your hierarchy of King, Abernathy,
Shuttl esworth, Walker, you were more or less like a general
directing troops. From what I can gather, maybe this is correct
or maybe itls not, you can correct me, it looks as if Fred tended
to be more involved in actual demonstrations than King or
Abernathy.
DR. WALKER: No, I don lt think that1s true. They were equally
involved. I donlt think any decision was made ...
ANDREW MANIS: I donlt mean decisions. I mean actually out in
the streets leading the marches.
DR. WALKER: Well, Fred only led one march that I remember.
ANDREW MANIS: The one on May 2nd or 3rd when he was .
DR. WALKER: The one where we ended up at the Post Office because
that is the one where we sent them another way.
ANDREW MANIS: Was this the one where he was slammed against the
church by the fire hose?
DR. WALKER: No, no . That was around D Day or D plus one. My
sense then, I donlt remember exactly, my feeling then about what
Fred was trying to do then was to keep the marches in some
orderly fashion. You know, make them neat and, of course, he was
recognizable by these white firemen and I think he just got the
brunt of their hatred. But itls hard to say what went on then
because we had somebody everywhere. Bevel was running them out
the church and I was on the walkie talkie trying to coordinate
with him. Somebody was bringing us reports from downtown, so it
was • • •
26
ANDREW MANIS: Generally, where would you be stationed?
DR. WALKER: I had a second floor office overlooking Ingram Park
which had been provided by A. G. Gaston. I had a three office
suite and that is where the operational he adquarters of the
demonstrations were. Two or three times a day, whenever I got
word, Bernard Lee would usually come for me, Dr. King would want
to see me, and whenever I went to see Dr. King to make a report
on where we were or what we were going to do next, Abernathy and
Shuttlesworth were there, along with I guess Andy Young was
around.
ANDREW MANIS: Was he at the motel?
DR. WALKER: Motel, yeah, we always met in room 30 or at the
lunch table when they had closed the dining room for lunch, or at
night when they closed the dining room we just made that the
meeting room. Dorothy Cotton would be there and some of the
local Birmingham people. There was no strict about who could
come to the meeting but the talking was done by King and
Shuttlesworth and Andy Young at some point. I almost always
responded to questions that were put to me or as to what I
thought should be done or where are we or how many tomorrow?
ANDREW MANIS: What was the attitude of SCLC staff people,
yourself, Bevel and other people who were there when
Shuttlesworth had something to say?
DR. WALKER: I never noticed anybody who had any attitude. I
know I didn't have any attitude. I just don't have any
recollection of anybody having any untoward or take any exception
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to Shuttlesworth saying something.
ANDREW MANIS: Were you at the infamous meeting at the Drew's
home where .
DR. WALKER: No, as I say, negotiation was not my bag. That was
Andy Young's bag. I don't even know to this day where they live.
So I was not a party to that and did not want to be.
ANDREW MANIS: Well, as you have read about that or heard about
it, how do you interpret what happened there?
DR. WALKER: Well, I think Dr. King just made a mistake of making
a commitment without the courtesy of asking Fred. There wasn't
anything intentional. He didn't mean -- I ran into Fred. When
he heard about it he was at the motel and, you know, Taylor
Branch had some furious story that I had, somebody told him I
gave Fred something to put him to sleep, I don't know, it was off
the wall. I never knew anything about that. If somebody had
suggested that to me, I wouldn't have been a party to it. But he
was the local leader, he had a right to know. And as I say, I
know it was not done intentionally. It was just like you forget
to do things some time and I think Dr. King -- it just didn't
occur to him he ought to run this by Fred. Under normal
circumstances Fred would have been there, but Fred had been
injured by the fire hose and that is the only reason he wasn't
there. And it really wasn't, Dr. King had extracted the best
deal we could get. There wasn't anything more we could get.
Fred's whole upset was that they had made a deal and nobody told
him or asked him. That's all. It was just a human thing. And
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he had also been hurt and upset and the strain of the Movement.
We were getting three or four hours sleep a night and sometimes
no sleep at all. So, I think too much was made of that.
ANDREW MANIS: Some of those people who made a good deal of that,
you have referred to Taylor Branch a few times, others have
talked about a cooling in the relationship of Dr. King and
Shuttlesworth after this , not necessari l y the cause of it, but
does that make any sense to you?
DR . WALKER: Nah, Dr. Ki ng was not close to Fred before. So
there wasn 't any cooling .
ANDREW MANIS: He did, in some sense , become less active •
DR . WALKER: No , no, now, see you guys are trying to make
something that doesn 't exist . The nature of the way SCLC
developed, there was not any day to day role for Fred
Shuttlesworth to play and as SCLC became big, I mean a strong
potent organization which it was, even Abernathy -- Abernathy
never, it was Walker . It was King and Walker. And I tried to
stay , you know, I was always pushing Abernathy. And as the
demands of Abernathy 's growing church , he could not go on the
road as much so it was more and more King and Walker , King and
Walker. And I began to get some of this resentment because
peopl e felt like I was having undue influence on Martin. Well ,
who shoul d have had undue influence on him other than his top
staff person . You know, I had the responsibility. I'm the one
who was keeping everything wired up. But , here again , this was
as I viewed it, guys who had, all they had ever done was run
29
churches. And SCLC was not a church. It was a major Civil
Rights organization and had to be run as such.
ANDREW MANIS: As we finish up here, I appreciate your time.
DR. WALKER: And my candor, right? {Laughs.]
ANDREW MANIS: Absolutely. You did mention just now that King
and Shuttlesworth were not close. Could you elaborate on that?
DR. WALKER: Well, I mean they were not close like Abernathy and
King were close. Who else was King close to? I mean, he wasn't
close to Joe Lowery. I'm talking about close like, we have the
expression "boon coons" you know. Abernathy was his brother. He
was closer to Abernathy than he was to his brother, A. D. I mean
Abernathy had a very unique place in Martin King's life and when
anybody -- I was not as close to Martin in that sense as
Abernathy was. My closeness to King had to do with the
organizational operation. And nobody was as close as I was. Now
see this is another thing that got in my craw with Taylor. He
says that Stanley Levinson was quoted as saying that my ego
always had me in conflict with the organization. He doesn't know
what in the hell he is talking about. In a literal sense I was
the organization. He can't find anybody who said I was in
conflict with the organization. I never did anything that wasn't
ratified by Martin King. It was my sense of reverence for his
leadership and my sense of propriety as to what my job was. If
something didn't please the leader I was through with it. He
always gave me and I told him when I went to work for him that I
wanted an opportunity to say what I had to say and if you say
30
otherwise, you're the president and I will do what you say. We
had that understanding. The only cross word we ever had was in
Birmingham in Room 30. He called me and asked me about something
and I had been up two or three nights. No sleep. I just threw
my clipboard down and said "I can't be everywhere." He said,
"Wait a minute, wait a minute! I'm the president." I said, "I'm
sorry, leader." I apologized immediately. It was just
weariness. Because he was the last person in the world I wanted
to offend and that is the only cross word we ever had. Martin
King said publicly and privately that when he was bringing me to
SCLC he asked the preachers in my town who I worked with, Reid
and Williams, what did they think about him bringing me. The two
guys who I worked with, they told him they thought it would be a
mistake. He told me later that that's what they said. And then
Sam Proctor, do you know the name Samuel DeWitt Proctor? Sam
Proctor, I am doing his luncheon tomorrow. Sam Proctor told King
"if you bring T. Walker there, that will be the worst mistake you
ever made. II Then I saw Sam in the same time period. He was
going to speak for Rip Daniel at Virginia State. He told me, "I
hear you are going to go down and work with King?" I said,
"Yeah, I'm thinking about it." He said, "Let me tell you, if you
go down there to Atlanta, it will be the worst mistake you ever
made." So I went home and told my wife, "Honey, we're going to
Atlanta. Sam Proctor told me if we go to Atlanta, it will be the
worst mistake I have made. If he thinks it's the worst, I know
its a good thing to do. II But what I am saying is afterwards he
31
told me that it was the best decision he ever made. He said ,
"All of the predictions that I would get i n the way and try to be
upstaging," he said he "never had any inkling at any time , that I
hadn 't been exactly he wanted someone the organization ...
ANDREW MANIS: Well , again , thank you for your time and input.
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